Alan Goodwin - Gravity's Chain

‘Shit,’ continued Bebe as he experimented with his new vocabulary. ‘You two need to go to my room.’

‘I’m not going anywhere.’ Claudia was already near the door.

Bebe composed himself, dropped his hands to the side of his body and in a low whisper that carried a menace I’d never heard before said, ‘You two go to my room, wait there for me and do not leave until I say you can leave.’ I took his key and like two chastised schoolchildren we went to Bebe’s room. Claudia’s defiance was clearly all show and Bebe’s resoluteness had for the moment silenced her objections. Bebe’s room, as always, was in the same corridor, but not next to mine as might be expected—perhaps he thought I might keep him awake at night. The room was fastidiously tidy and even though no maid had yet visited, the bed was made. I sat down and watched Claudia continue her stalking cat routine. She lit a cigarette and flicked ash into a glass.

‘Do you always do what he tells you?’

‘Pretty much,’ I replied.

‘I’m not staying here.’

‘I think you should, we need to sort some things out.’

‘That’s why I’m not staying here.’

I clenched my teeth. This was my first moment of reflection on what had happened and the reflection was shit ugly. I felt sick. ‘You have to stay, Claudia.’ Fighting the nausea was going to be pointless. Deprivations of the body from the night before, mixed with the shock of Jo’s condition, were irresistible forces. I ran to the bathroom to vomit. There were no warm-up coughs to acclimatise the body to what was to come. Oh no, I sprayed the sink immediately with a high-octane mixture of old alcohol, remnants of food, bile and the not so humble smell of fear. At the end there were also some tears, but I could not be sure if they came from the experience of vomiting or from the shit piling up around me. After the last shocks finally abated I washed away the remnants of my stomach before splashing water on my face. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Was this really me?

Claudia was gone. It was no surprise, and who could blame her. Christ, given half the chance I’d join her. There was something undeniably attractive about just walking from this room and leaving everything behind. Bebe would do all he could, but I knew the company would lose their collective minds over this escapade. If any of this reached the papers I’d be sunk and my drowning would leave a very dirty mark on my very clean masters. Oh yes, this was bad; this was fucking bad.

‘Just one thing, Jack, just one thing, that’s all I asked of you.’ Bebe had returned. ‘And you couldn’t even do that. Why did you let her go?’ He strode around the room flapping the air with a towel to clear the smoke. He’d yet to find the glass full of ash. He was sweating and his shirt had dark marks under the arms and down the back.

‘How is Jo?’ I was almost too afraid to ask.

‘In a coma, Jack, she’s in a bloody coma.’

‘Where is she now?’

‘Hospital.’

‘Will she live?’

‘That’s in God’s hands now.’

He noticed the glass and picked it up with the tip of his finger and thumb as though it contained a dog turd. ‘What an earth were you doing last night?’

‘Just having some fun.’

‘Going fishing with a friend is having fun, going to a sports game with your son is having fun, listening to music and having a dance is having fun, but an orgy with a Russian hooker and an old school friend while taking enough cocaine to keep Napoleon’s army going isn’t having fun. It’s called destroying your life, and it’s bloody senseless. You’ve gone too far this time, Jack. She might die.’

‘I know and I feel awful.’

‘Awful? Awful? Is that all you can say? I’ll tell you something, Jack—you’re coming apart at the seams. Paranoid stories about being followed, sex, drugs and drink out of control…’ He was crying as he spoke. ‘You have so many gifts. I’d cut off my left leg for a fraction of your talent, but what do you do with it all? You give up work and slowly destroy yourself and everything you’ve worked for.’

‘I can’t work, Bebe, there’s nothing left for me. I’ve achieved my peak and I know I’ll never come close again. Even if I work for a hundred years I can’t touch what I’ve done. Everything seems so bloody mundane in comparison. There’s nothing left for me, Bebe, nothing.’

‘The company has to know about this. You have no idea what I’ve had to do to sort this out.’ He pulled a tissue from the box beside his bed and dabbed his eyes. ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen, Jack.’

‘Thank you, Bebe. Thank you for helping.’

‘I did it for the girl, I did it for myself,’ he lied.

‘I know—thank you for helping her. I’m sure she’ll pull through and she’ll owe her life to you. That is something to really be proud of, Bebe, a real achievement that matters, not some fantasy like mine.’

He stopped crying. ‘I’ve cancelled today’s press meetings—I said you were unwell. Jack, will you promise me something? Will you promise to get some help when we get back to England? Will you see someone about what troubles you so much?’

I dropped my head and sat silently.

‘You can’t even do that, can you? At such a desperate moment as this you can’t seek help.’

‘There’s something that just drives me to it, Bebe, and I don’t know that I want it to stop.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because without it there would just be this fucking huge ugly void and I’m scared of it. At least I know about the drink and the sex.’

‘How ironic that you’re afraid of the unknown when your work takes everyone else there.’

‘Can I go back to my room now, please?’

No one would have imagined what had happened in the room just hours before. The bed was made, the room tidied and cleaned, and all previously scattered possessions in their rightful place. I avoided asking Bebe how he’d sorted this problem, how he’d turned the clock back and manufactured a different outcome to protect me. How much had Claudia’s disappearance upset his plans? It was best I didn’t know. It didn’t stop me speculating, though. I bet he engineered the finding of Jo’s body in another room. The hotel would have been compliant: after all, they wouldn’t want any bad publicity and there would have been the offer of some future Taikon conference to smooth the changed records required to cover up the story and sever any connection with Jo. Everything would be taken care of, everything except Claudia, of course. Thanks to me, Claudia was still free.

Slowly late afternoon invaded the room, casting shadows on the furniture. I tried sleeping, but it was impossible. Jo’s lifeless face and fragments of the night before forced themselves on me. Somehow I had to get away. I dressed and walked the waterfront for an hour. The evening was cool and thick cloud pressed down on the horizon. A guard walked with me and I pulled my hat low to avoid recognition. I felt hunted, as though everyone on the street knew what I’d done. It might not be long before they actually did know. Could one of them be my stalker? The thought made me angry.

When I returned to the hotel, the manager passed me an envelope. In my room I sat on a chair I was sure Jo had never used and read the letter at least six or seven times. The night was almost on me and I let the room darken until I could no longer read.

So finally Jack Mitchell has returned home to New Zealand—and what a homecoming. His show at the Aotea Centre last night was a stunning experience. Part rock star, part bar lounge crooner, part sex symbol and total genius, Mitchell had it all. And he held the audience spellbound for nearly ninety minutes.